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Assisting Others with Herblore Sample Herblore Training Plans

In the section discussing Herblore skill products, I introduce unfinished potions, and mention that even though they are intermediate products of potion making, they are important in their own right. The reason for this is the way the Herblore skill has been set up: with most potions, you get none of the XP for mixing the herb with the water to make an unfinished potion, and all of the XP for adding the secondary ingredient to complete the potion.

Since unfinished potions are tradeable, this means that the work that is represented by the first step of making a potion can be effectively bought and sold. This opens up a lot of interesting possibilities that go beyond training.

The design of the Herblore skills effectively divides potion making into two activities, one of which provides no XP, while the other provides a great deal. For example, let’s consider making super restore potions. Standard potion making takes 45 seconds to make 14 potions, for 1,120 per hour. Super restores give 142.5 XP each, so that’s 159,600 XP per hour.

However, we can divide this process into two sub-processes as follows:

• Making Unfinished Snapdragon Potions: Adding 14 clean snapdragons to 14 vials of water takes up approximately 20 seconds out of the 45 second total in making super restore potions. No XP is granted for this, so the activity earns 0 XP per hour.
  
  
• Finishing Super Restore Potions: Adding 14 red spiders’ eggs to complete the potions takes 25 seconds out of the 45 second total. All 142.5 XP is granted for this, which makes this step’s effective earning speed a whopping 287,280 XP per hour.

This opens up several important opportunities in Herblore training:If you are doing both steps yourself, this division doesn’t matter, but remember that most unfinished potions are tradeable. Now, obviously, the second step here is the one that matters for training: nobody wants to spend time making unfinished potions that provide no XP, while everyone would like to get unfinished potions at a reasonable price so they can level faster. With all of the XP concentrated into the second half of the job, this means that unfinished potions normally sell at a premium compared to the cost of a vial of water and the herbs that go into them.

• Powerleveling: Rich players in a hurry can save time by purchasing unfinished potions instead of herbs and vials of water. They get faster XP but at a much higher cost.
  
  
• Earning Gold: Herblorists who want to make money can choose to put herbs they have purchased or gathered into vials and sell them, earning money that they can use for whatever purpose they wish.
  
  
• Offsetting Training Costs: Smart players can choose to make some finished and some unfinished potions, allowing them to get XP at a slower speed but a much lower cost.

The viability of these options depends, of course, on the exact state of the market. Some unfinished potions are transacted in very low volumes, and can be hard to buy or sell. The premium of an unfinished potion compared to the cost of both ingredients and the finished potion will also vary over time. You have to always check carefully before deciding to either make unfinished potions or buy them for leveling. Also buy and sell quickly in small quantities, so the market doesn’t move against you.

It’s quite simple to powerlevel using unfinished potions: instead of buying herbs and vials of water to make what you are interested in, buy the unfinished potions instead, and add secondary ingredients to them. This takes 25 seconds instead of 45 seconds per 14 potions made, so it increases your leveling speed by a hefty 80%.

Of course, it also costs you more, with how much more it costs depending on the state of the market. Sometimes you can get lucky and find unfinished potions selling for only a bit more than herbs, but usually the premium on good potions is several hundred gp each.

For example, recall that in my potions training assessment, the cost of vials of water was 95, clean ranarr was 5,799 and snape grass 458, with prayer potions selling for 5,284. At that time, the cost of an unfinished ranarr potion was 6,436. With these figures, the skill activity ratings for powerleveling starting with unfinished ranarr potions are:

SAV = ( 5284 - (6436 + 458) ) / 87.5 = -18.4

SAS = 87.5 * 2016 = 176,400 XP/hr

SAP = -18.4 * 176,400 / 1000 = -3,246 kgp/hr

Ouch. As you can see, this is very fast, but also very expensive. Now, recall the figures for making prayer potions from raw materials:

SAV = ( 5284 - (5799 + 95 + 458) ) / 87.5 = -12.2

SAS = 87.5 * 1120 = 98,000 XP/hr

SAP = -12.2 * 98,000 / 1000 = -1,196 kgp/hr

What is the time value equivalent to powerleveling by buying these unfinished potions?

TVE [prayer potions from unfinished compared to prayer potions from raw materials] = ( (176400 / 98000) * -1196 - (-3246) ) / (176400/98000 - 1) = 1,366 kgp/hr

The time you save by powerleveling is effectively costing you 1.36 million per hour—not worth the cost for most people.

Remember, though, that as relative prices change, so does the value equation. In the example above, the premium of unfinished ranarr potions over a ranarr and vial was 542 gp; on a different day I checked prices and found a difference of only 233 gp. This makes a huge difference! I recalculated the figures above using those values, and the TVE dropped from 1,366 all the way to 588 k/hr! Sure, that’s still expensive, but it’s a much more reasonable price to pay for powerleveling.

If you are more interested in making some cash than leveling Herblore, you can do it by creating unfinished potions to sell to rich powerlevelers. This is simply the other half of the equation I showed you just above.

Let’s take the same numbers from before: the cost of vials of water at 95, clean ranarr at 5,799 and snape grass 458, with unfinished ranarr potions worth 6,436. It takes only 20 seconds to make 14 of these, so you can make 2,520 per hour. The profit per unfinished potion is 542 gp as mentioned before, which comes to 1,365,840 gp per hour.

Woah, is that right? Yep, it is. But you thought it was “impossible to make money from Herblore”? Don’t believe everything you read (Figure 170). J

Again, this will change as prices change, as I said above. When the differential was 233 gp, then the profit potential was “only” 587k per hour. Still, darned good money.

If you go this route, remember to be patient in selling the unfinished potions. Sometimes there is not much of a market for these, so don’t panic and try to sell them for the minimum price. A good method is to list them just below average selling price and wait. But also watch out for unfinished potions that are in the GE at too much of a premium over the herb cost: I’ve seen the delta as much as 1k per potion, and at that much difference, they probably will not sell.

This is a way to make lots of money and also get a small amount of XP. If the market conditions are favorable, buy grimy herbs, clean them and then make them into unfinished potions to sell. This option can be considered somewhat in between the method of making potions from grimy herbs, and the more general method of getting XP by cleaning grimy herbs.

Here’s an example I did as I was writing this. I bought 56 grimy snapdragons for 7,610 each (at a time when clean snapdragons cost 7,700) and 56 water-filled vials for 94 gp each. Total cost was 7,704 gp per potion. I cleaned these and made them into 56 unfinished snapdragon potions, a process that took 1 minute 50 seconds. This is slower than starting with clean herbs, of course, since it takes time to do the cleaning; it works out to 1,832 potions made per hour instead of 2,520.

I sold those potions for 8,403 gp each, which is a profit of 699 gp a piece. Here’s how the skill ratings for this work out:

SAV = ( 8403 - (7610 + 94) ) / 11.8 = +59.2

SAS = 11.8 * 1832 = 21,617 XP/hr

SAP = +59.2 * 21,617 / 1000 = +1,281 kgp/hr

This is actually even better than making super weapon poisons—assuming you are able to find favorable prices on unfinished potions. I was rather lucky to find prices this much in my favor. Remember that the market for these items can change rapidly, so keep checking prices!

Selling unfinished potions makes good money, and you can effectively use this to finance making potions of your own and selling them at a loss, to let you get more XP than is possible with just the cleaning method. To do so, take the middle ground: make a bunch of unfinished potions, sell half of them for profit, and make the other half into potions for XP to sell.

I tried this using super restores (though on a different day from the examples above, so the numbers are different.) I bought 112 water vials for 95 gp each, 112 grimy snapdragons for 7,511 gp each, and 56 red spiders’ eggs for 319 each. I used these ingredients to make 56 unfinished snapdragon potions and 56 finished super restore potions, all of which I sold.

The total cost of materials was 869,790, and the money I got from selling the potions was 470,792 for the unfinished potions and 364,896 for the super restores, for a total of 835,688. The XP made was 11.8 * 112 for cleaning, and 142.5 * 56 for the completed potions, a total of 9,301.6. This took 5 minutes 30 seconds to complete.

Here are the skill activity ratings:

SAV = ( 835688 - 869790 ) / 9301.6 = -3.67

SAS = 9301.6 / 5.5 * 60 = 101,472 XP/hr

SAP = -3.67 * 101,472 / 1000 = -372 kgp/hr

These are very nice figures, especially compared to the numbers for just making the super restores:

SAV = ( 364896 - 443839 ) / (56 * 142.5) = -9.89

SAS = 142.5 * 1,120 = 159,600 XP/hr

SAP = -9.89 * 159,600 / 1000 = -1579 kgp/hr

As you can see, the “split the difference” technique gives more than 50% of the straight potion XP, but loses a fraction of the money! The time value equivalent of making all the herbs into potions is:

TVE [super restore potions compared to 50% potions and 50% selling unfinished] = ( (159600 / 101472) * -372 - (-1579) ) / (159600/101472 - 1) = 1,735 k/hr

Unless you are willing to pay 1.7 million per hour for faster leveling, the “split the difference” method is the better option for fast Herblore leveling at a reasonable cost.

Assisting Others with Herblore Sample Herblore Training Plans